Microsoft has recently changed the traffic volume for the free VPN feature in its Edge browser. Users can now enjoy up to 5 GB of data usage when utilizing the built-in "Secure Network" service. The company has launched it in testing with the 1GB data cap for the free plan, and it has been released with the same limitation to the public. Finally, this has changed.
Microsoft promotes its free VPN feature in Edge as a reliable solution for maintaining privacy, preventing online tracking, and ensuring secure connections to both HTTP and HTTPS websites.
ℹ️ VPNs can be used to hide your physical location from websites. This is not case of Edge's "Secure Network" service. It is powered by CloudFlare, which picks a nearest server for your place. On the one hand, it provides a high connection speed. On the other hand, it tells a lot about your real whereabouts to someone who wants to know it.
Free VPN in Edge now offers 5GB of web traffic
Microsoft has quietly updated the "Edge Secure Network" (VPN) support page, which now clearly states that you can now use up to 5 GB of data without having to pay.
The change is also reflected in the settings of the browser. When you switch VPN mode, you will find that the data cap is now "5G per month".
Besides, Microsoft has slightly updated the user interface that shows the data stats for the Edge VPN. Instead of the own flyout (hub), the stats now reside in the "Browser essentials" flyout. You can open it by clicking on the "heart" icon in the toolbar. From there, you can also enable or disable the VPN connection.
Note: Some of these changes may be not available in the stable Edge version as of this writing. You can try them in the Canary channel of the browser.
By adding extra traffic value to the free data plan, Microsoft makes the built-in Edge VPN feature more attractive and usable for the end user. The previous data cap couldn't offer much. Today's websites are heavy and often load a huge number of scripts, web frameworks, videos, etc. They easily eliminate the renaming traffic, making you find some alternative solution.
A small traffic limit in the service can make the user negatively perceive the built-in VPN, which will seem useless to him. On the other hand, an increased data limit shows the real potential of the service and may convince the user to pay for more traffic.
Thanks to @Leopeva64 for sharing their findings.
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